Job site recruitment for Accounting, Audit and Finance Support Roles

The job site market for Accounting, Audit and Finance Support roles is quite mature with many generalist and specialist sites catering to it. In addition, hiring for roles in this area is one of the stronger areas amongst all of the areas job sites cover.

This strength is no doubt due to the fact that the accounting career is amenable both to online job searching and advertising. There is, for example, a clear career path with definitive job roles and duties at each stage of the finance career. The accounting skill set is defined yet is generally transferable across companies and sectors. And qualifications and years of experience are also integral to many roles.

Such clarity in the career means that both candidates and recruiters can be clear about the job being hired for. The upshot for recruiters is that the right job ad in the right place should bring the right candidates.

The Accounting Sector: Practice versus Commerce & Industry

• Practice Accountancy
  Practice accounting roles are those roles that are typically offered by the accounting practices (e.g. Pricewaterhouse, KPMG, Deloitte etc.) Entry level roles in Practice tend to be in the audit area and hiring for them continues to be done via graduate schemes at universities. While many job sites cover graduate roles in accounting, the traditional online recruitment websites for graduates still seem to be strongest in this area. Hiring for more senior roles in Practice is similar to hiring for senior roles in Commerce and Industry and is covered below.
• Commerce & Industry
  'Commerce and Industry' is a phrase from the accounting world used to describe companies that are not accounting firms. That is, Commerce and Industry includes all companies except accountancy firms. As the majority of users of whatjobsite.com are hiring for such companies, the focus of this article is on recruiting for Accounting, Audit and Finance Support roles in Commerce and Industry.

The Recruiting Year

January and February are popular times for many people to change jobs and accounting and finance professionals are no different. Job sites have also reported that in September, after the holidays are over, there is a significant rise in job seeker activity.

The release of the accounting exam results in December and July/August also has a significant impact on the recruiting year. This is especially the case with ACA exam results, when many newly-qualified accountants will leave Practice to enter Commerce and Industry. This offers employers many opportunities.

The State of the Recruitment Market

“The market is very buoyant the moment! A strong economy, the internationalisation of accounting standards and increasing regulation have made accounting a more complex process, and this has escalated the demand for qualified accountants.” Juliana Akor, Marketing Manager at totallyfinancial.com.

Buoyant sounds positive —and it is for candidates. But a buoyant market offers challenges for recruiters. It means that there is increased competition from other recruiters as well as pressure on salaries  (See below for salary surveys.) It also means that, in advertising your job on a job site, you may have to think beyond a basic job ad if you want to attract the right candidate. Think of enhancing your vacancy advertisement with email alerts, keyword sponsorships or home page advertising to give your job ad the edge. 

Advertising your job

From an analysis of the information we have been able to collate, there do seem to be certain characteristics of job sites that will have an impact on the choice of job sites for your vacancy.

Specialist job sites or Generalists?

Many of the specialist or niche job sites in accounting and finance roles appear to have both a higher age and salary demographic than the generalist job sites. That is, the candidates using specialist or niche sites tend, in general, to be older and have higher average salaries than those using the generalist sites. For advertisers this would suggest that more highly paid and senior roles would do better on specialist or niche job sites. The corollary is that, the lower level or entry level finance support roles would tend to suit the generalist sites. ( For more information the difference between generalist and specialist/niche job boards, read 'Generalist job sites versus specialist job sites.'

Spread your advertising

Information available about job seekers in the accounting area suggests that while there are many who look at all job sites when job hunting, there are many other users who only look at one or two sites. This means that if you advertise your job on only one site, it might be missed by potential candidates. Using a number of job sites (be they specialist or generalist, paid for or free) will increase your potential candidate pool and, therefore, your chances of hiring success. In other words, don't put all your eggs in one basket. Spread your advertising efforts across a number of sites.

Talk to job sites

Talk to as many job sites as you can about the accounting role you wish to advertise. A good job site should be able to help you with your advertising as well as advise you of the advertising products that will get the best results for you. This latter point will be important in the current buoyant market. There is one further benefit to talking to job sites: the market is very competitive at the moment and there are always special offers, trials and upgrades available. If you don't ask, you don't get.

The Bottom Line

As each job vacancy is different and each recruiter unique, we would not tell you which is the right job site for you to use for your job. Indeed, there are many aspects to choosing a good job site beyond the scope of this article (See our article 'How to choose a job site' for more details.) However, drawing from our research, the following might offer an approach in helping to select the right job sites for your Accounting, Audit and Finance Support vacancies.

Entry Level Roles: Finance Support Roles
Typical roles: Credit Control, Finance assistant, Sales and Purchase Ledger, Bookkeeper, Finance Clerk, Accounts assistant etc.
Tip: As these roles tend to be junior and for people early in their career, the generalist sites would seem to offer the best solution here.

Mid Level Roles: Accountant/Audit
Typical roles: Assistant Accountant. Newly qualified accountants.
Tip: These roles will have increased specialism or management responsibility. As these will generally cover 2nd or 3rd jobbers, a combination of specialist and generalist should maximise response.

Senior Level Accounting Roles (or more specialised audit and accounting roles)
Typical Roles: Financial Controller, Forensics, Finance Director, Internal Auditor, Risk Analyst, Tax Accountant etc.
Tip: As these roles are senior, requiring significant career experience and a very developed skill set, the demographics of the job sites would suggest that specialist sites would have the edge here.

Article updated: July 2007 

Thanks: We would like to thank totallyfinancial.com for their help in producing this article. Read the whatjobsite job site survey with totallyfinancial.com.

Salary Surveys: For your convenience, we have included links to a number of salary surveys covering roles in Accounting, Audit and Finance Support: Robert Walters Salary Survey; Bandenock & Clark Salary Survey; Michael Page Salary Surveys

We hope this article has been of help to you. For more information and articles on online recruitment advertising please visit our Recruitment Advice area. If you would like to comment on any of them or on whatjobsite in general, please click here to email us. To find the right job sites and job boards to advertise your vacancies, use the search box above. To find specialist or niche job sites to advertise your vacancies click here.

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